The Junia Project

Advocating for Women's Equality in the Church and Home

Is God Male?

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When I teach about the Trinity in my introductory theology class, the topic of God and gender often comes up. “Is God male?” Let’s think about that.

The Bible often refers to God with masculine personal pronouns. Following this, Christians usually say “He,” “Him, “His,” and “Himself,” when referring to God. Trinitarian language is predominately masculine (“Father” and “Son”) though “Holy Spirit” is more elusive. Many popular Christian books celebrate the more masculine qualities of God (especially books for men and books on ‘leadership’): God is a hero, a conqueror, a warrior, a triumphant king, and so forth.

Even so, I would be extremely hesitant about saying that God IS male; in fact, I would push further to argue that such a notion applied to God, absolutely and without qualification, is both false and misleading.

Manhood & Masculinity: 3 Great Studies for Groups

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“I’m looking for book recommendations that are egalitarian friendly and address the subjects of manhood and masculinity. I can’t find anything and our men’s ministry leaders are asking me. Please help!! Thank you!!” B.
An interesting thing happened on the way to writing this post. Since I am not a man, I asked eight men for book suggestions and got back ZERO recommendations. Not because they don’t care about the topic, but because 1) they were not aware of any resources on this, or 2) because there has not been much interest in studying “biblical manhood” in their circles. ALL of them told me they were very interested in anything we could find! It is encouraging that manhood and masculinity are not “hot topics” in church circles that support the shared leadership of men and women in ministry and socials contexts. But there is still a need to provide resources for churches that push back against the harmful “authentic manhood” rhetoric that is popular in some Christian circles today. Here are three books that would work well for individual or group study and are written from an egalitarian perspective.

Malestrom: Manhood Swept Into The Currents Of A Changing World (Review & Giveaway)

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In her new book Malestrom: Manhood Swept Into The Currents Of A Changing World, Carolyn Custis James demonstrates why she is one of the most compelling theologians of the twenty-first century. With the authority and unction of a true prophet, she not only identifies one of the major issues of our day—a fallen idea of maleness—but offers biblically grounded insight for how this curse can be undone.

James explains her astute word-play-title and the premise of the book:

The malestrom is the particular ways in which the fall impacts the male of the human species—causing a man to lose himself, his identity and purpose as a man, and above all else to lose sight of God’s original vision for his sons.

We don’t have to look far to find evidence of this malestrom.

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